Australia's alternative electronic label Future Classic have been revealing a string of talented and diverse artists, stretching from Flume to Classix and more. Now, meet Charles Murdoch, fresh off the back of his Weathered Straight EP, a record that focuses on broken beats, breezy atmospherics and skin tingling, heart melting melodies as he focuses on "mood rather than hooks". Having already made an indelible mark in his native Australia, Charles is looking to branch beyond his home city of Brisbane with his emotive blend of contempoary electronica - luckily, Pulse are here to help him spread the word...
Charles, welcome. Tell us a bit about your musical background... Hello, Well I started out producing music on some crappy program which i was using to make music for a film i was doing at school. I became really fascinated with creating music using technology and how these big producers were achieving such polished sounds.
You have a new EP being released this month. What can we expect? You can experience me feeling like i’m not trying to impress anyone but myself. I think it’s a very personal thing and i’m happy that people are getting into the new single!
You’re signed to Future Classic, do you feel they give you creative freedom or are you expected to hit a certain sound? No, they give me complete freedom on the creative direction. Of course, there is times when i will be told to release this song over that other song. But it’s always for the best and those dudes have there heads screwed when it comes down to knowing what the people will enjoy.
Who do you rate highly from the Future Classic camp? Flume is always going to get a big thumbs up for me. I’ve loved a lot of his stuff and i’m glad he’s seeing a lot of recognition. Jagwar Ma is amazing as well, I’ve known Jono for a while and he is crazy talented at what he does.
You’ve worked with a couple of vocalists on your Weathered Straight EP. How do you approach working with vocalists, do they work differently? All the songs on the EP I created by myself in my bedroom. While i was creating them i had a vision for what the vocals would sound like and who would be great for them. I sent it off to Oscar and Steffaloo and they recorded their vocals through there own mics and emailed me back. Power of the internet...
You’ve not done much in the way of collaborations, is there anyone out there you would particularly like to work with?
I’d really like to do a track with Teresa Jenee, her voice is amazing, really smooth and has a lot of attitude. I’m hoping to get into some more hip hop stuff as well.
You’ve previously said that Future Classic really look after you. Are you a close camp as a label, do you see much of each other? Yes, we do. I’m not saying every day because we’re in different states but when the opportunity comes up we definitely have a beer. Their super nice dudes and very chilled to hang with.
Who are you playing in your sets at the moment? I’m playing a lot of Andras Fox, Vanilla, Tweet, Stewrat.
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Are there any other projects in the pipeline – you hit all the right attributes for creating an album. .. Not really, at the moment i’m just focusing on getting my live set together. I’m definitely keen on heading away and writing an album though. stay tuned.. ;)
You manage to create really haunting sounds, how important is atmosphere in a track to you? Is it fair to say you don’t value the more ‘in your face approach’? Yeah i think you got it! I’m a big fan of Lapalux, James Holden, Dauwd and i guess i’ve drawn a lot of influences off them. I like to create moods rather than hooks so I guess that means i’m spending a lot more time creating ticks and clicks rather than creating your sing along vocal melody...maybe one day i’ll head down that road though. Whatever i’m feeling at the time... music is meant to be personal (I think).